strangely are our souls constructed
by donutworry
Summary: This is not a love story. But what else could it be?


**AN: **Title is a quote from the novella "_Frankenstein"_ by Mary Shelley. This is gross. Somewhat of a Santa Clarita Diet au, but super dark and more horror than comedy. There's a lot of allusions to other Bonnie fanfictions: respectable_alcoholic's "_Dragged Out_", Scorpio_Karma's "_Breakfast at Denny's_", and then my own fic series "_Consequences_". Surprisingly enough, *spoiler* this has a happy ending, so woohoo.

**TW: **Kai is a creepy motherfucker. Corpse desecration, violence, murder, cannibalism, dubious consent, emotional manipulation, and serious necromantic vibes. The working title for this fic was "zombonnie porn" and I rewrote it twice to be more palatable and it still gives me, the author, heebie jeebies. Take that as you will.

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_act i_

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"We said we'd kill that bottle, then ourselves," Damon murmurs, staring down at the empty bourbon bottle.

Oldest in the house, he'd said. A part of Kai finds it funny that a vampire made a death pact with a depressed young woman. Another part of Kai is desperately wondering where Bonnie is.

This was supposed to be fun. Cathartic even. But Kai stares down at the empty liquor bottle, the shattered glass tumbler, and all he feels is sick.

It's her birthday. He hadn't known that this morning when he walked into the Salvatore boarding house. He really did just want to leave a message for his sister and ship off to Portland, take hold of everything he'd fought and killed and bled to have. He thought he'd have time to retrieve the girl haunting his dreams on his own time, now that he had the power and resources to make another Ascendant. Garner some petty vengeance by leaving her alone, make her long for the days when it was just the two of them, when she had the throes of their little games to keep her company.

Bonnie'd come crawling back to him, begging for freedom and he'd have fun dangling it over her head.

But that's a pipe dream. Another fantasy. She'd made sure of that.

Inordinately, rage rushes through Kai and the four of them are back in the boarding house.

Not the one in ninety-four. The real one. Damon is glaring at him and Elena is stuttering about going back, we _have_ to go back, she's screaming Bonnie's name at him and Kai can't take it.

"_Phasmatos tace,_" he hisses and the doppelganger is muted. It takes her a minute to catch on that no sound is leaving her despite all that she is saying and anger draws over her face.

Kai rubs his hands over his own.

"Kai," Jeremy's voice is quiet, convicted. Much more tolerable than his wailing sister's. "We have to go back. Bonnie..."

"She's dead," Kai interrupts dully. "She killed herself."

"We need to know, Kai."

They don't. He certainly doesn't. But he glances between Jeremy's solemn face, Damon's face of consternation, and Elena's distraught pacing and heaves a breath. He feels the tug in his chest. He'd go back himself eventually.

"I can't take all of you," he says. "Just one. Draw straws, cage fight, play eenie, meenie, miney, moe. I don't care, just pick."

**-o0o-**

They find her in the garage.

Even however long later, long after the Camaro's engine has died, there's still a lingering odor of carbon monoxide in the air. It's overpowered by the sickly sweet stench of rotting meat and Kai knows before Jeremy hits the outside switch what they'll see.

For the first time in his life, he doesn't want to see it.

It's a slow, mounting dread: watching the garage door come up, turning the corner, _knowing_ what will be there. Seeing first her feet, then her outstretched legs, then the greyed, molted skin of her exposed back, then her pretty face cold and bloodless and still.

Jeremy stares at the lifeless body of his ex-girlfriend. He falls to his knees beside her, reaching out to scoop her form into his arms, heedless of her rot, cradling her to his chest. Kai just stares at the tragic duo, struggling to process the hodge-podge of emotions slamming him at once. When Jeremy bows his head, shoulders shaking and pulls Bonnie's still form closer, Kai sees the abandoned camcorder slightly under the Camaro, as if it had skidded under when dropped.

He steps closer and scoops it up. Jeremy ignores him, rocking Bonnie's body.

The camcorder is dead.

It's something to do, a task to focus on instead of trying to process emotions he's ill-equipped to handle. Kai roots around the garage until he finds batteries in a spare drawer, just the right size to fit. He trades them out in the camcorder, hoping they'd fit or carry charge.

They do both. As Kai waits for the camcorder to boot back up, he makes his way over to the grieving man who came with him. The last video on the camcorder is over two hours long, the still frame of it a close up of Bonnie's face. Kai plays the video and the sudden appearance of her voice, of seeing her moving and talking and _alive_ \- it sends a thrill through him.

"_It's probably a waste of time even recording anything. But Damon, Elena...whoever. You find this and you figure out how to work this stupid thing..._" video Bonnie sighs. "_Please tell everyone that I'm sorry. Tell them that I tried. I really tried to make it work."_

Her gaze is distance, no longer looking at the camera.

"_You know, it's just -" _her voice cracks. "_It's just too much. I miss saying hi to strangers." _A huff as she tries not to sob.

"_Ordering dinner in a restaurant. Laughing!" _Her eyes come back to the camera, speaking directly to it, almost crazed by her own self-mourning. "_With my friends."_

Another tear tracks her face.

"_But, um, spending every day here alone, with no one to talk to...going weeks without speaking...it's the loneliness, I can't, I can't take it."_

Kai feels her words echo in his chest, vibrate through his whole body with the way they resonate.

Fuck. He knows that feeling.

"_And I only know one way to turn it off."_

He watches the way Bonnie thumps her head against the Camaro in the video, the devastation on her face as she shakes her head and looks away. She shrugs and looks back into the camera.

"_I'm sorry,"_ she laments and takes a shuddering breath and Kai can't watch anymore. He shuts the camcorder off.

"It wasn't done," Jeremy growls and Kai turns his somber gaze from the device to the other man.

"There's two more hours left, Jeremy. Do you want to watch her die, or isn't this enough for you?"

**-o0o-**

He ends the astral projection before Jeremy can answer and they disapparate back into the real world. It's quiet, Damon and Elena nowhere in sight. Kai doesn't care enough to ponder where they are.

Bonnie was dead. Bonnie killed herself.

The feelings swirling through him are foreign, but there's one among them that's familiar, so Kai grips it and holds on. Anger, hot and roiling in its comfort, courses through Kai.

Bonnie's dead.

Selfish fucking bitch.

Jeremy crumples over himself, pulling his knees to his chest. His grief is quiet, his face twisted in a sort of agonized confusion that takes Kai by dull surprise. Everything feels surreal.

Bonnie had died.

And Bonnie's "friends", the ones she put above her own well-being, were _nowhere in sight_. They couldn't even fucking hang around to wait for an update. His rage swells.

Sure, maybe Kai had left Bonnie, but he hadn't been beholden to her. He wanted something and she made herself an obstacle, so he had to get her out of the way. But these people? These people owed her _everything_ and couldn't be bothered to give her anything until he brought himself through the front fucking door. How long would she have gone undiscovered if he hadn't?

His grip tightens. The defunct Ascendant bites his hand.

"_Phasmatos incendia_."

The rug he's standing on ignites spreading quickly to the walls and furniture. Jeremy looks up at him in surprise. Kai gives him a wry smile.

"You should probably jet," the coven leaders informs the hunter before spiriting himself away.

Kai takes the broken Ascendant with him. It's Gemini property after all.

**-o0o-**

He retreats back to Portland, with orders to Liv to return home immediately at the risk of having her powers bound and banishment from the coven if she disobeys. His youngest sister is home the day after he is, angry and scowling and seemingly plotting his downfall. Kai has no patience for it and plops her in the council to work.

From the Gemini sanctum, he destroys the letter to Jo he'd left with Elena. Instead of going the route of somewhat respecting his twin's boundaries, he opts to place a heavy rejection spell around Jo that would repel vampires from her life.

He knows Salvatore. Spent a third of a year studying him and Bonnie, learning both of their behaviors. Damon relied so heavily on Bonnie to do everything for him. Without her, Damon would try to scoop up some other witch to do his magical bidding. Kai will be damned if it's a Parker witch.

**-o0o-**

One day, he comes home and there's a calico cat sitting on his porch. She's affectionate and talkative and when Kai lets her in, she takes to the house like she's always lived there, nagging him for food until he gives in.

Her eyes remind him of Bonnie. Kai plays with her after she eats and asks if she'd like to be his familiar. He takes her pouncing on his hand as a yes and names her Bathsheba.

**-o0o-**

Days pass. Weeks. Then months. He immerses himself in being the coven leader, and as much as he was ill-prepared for leadership (his father had never bothered to groom him or Jo for it), he's _good_ at it. It was like he was born for it, and soon even the most staunchly opposed council members concede their begrudging respect.

The entire time, Kai sleeps with the broken Ascendant under his bed, a monster he doesn't want to face. Half-formed machinations swirl through his head, but he's still angry. He hates her.

He shoves the thoughts away. They persist, just as angry as he is.

**-o0o-**

Bonnie hasn't moved when he comes back. Of course, she hasn't - she's dead. His prison world could only reset him.

So, she hasn't moved. Kai's not sure why he expected her to. Her body is still slumped by the side of Damon's powder blue Camaro, over seven months as a rotting meat sack and well past rigor mortis into the ugly stages of decomposition.

She's disgusting.

Normally, it doesn't bother him. A body is a body, breathing or not, but her stillness, her petrification, her _absence _sits uneasy on his newfound consciousness. Touching her is queasy business, but he manages to roll her into the plastic storage bin he brought with him easily enough. She's less decayed than he had thought, proving, at least, that his prison world had done something to preserve her.

It had taken more time than he'd thought to organize his thoughts and form a plan of action. The beasties of Mystic Falls had tried to seek out his sisters for his location, but Kai's defensive planning had worked. Too busy moaning about being ghosted by Liv and Jo, they hadn't even noticed the missing blood Kai had swiped.

The Bennett blood he stole from Damon - from Bonnie's great aunt or someone - is pretty much depleted. Kai stares down at Bonnie's curled husk and grunts. He fishes the pocket knife he likes to carry out of his pocket.

It's not like she'll notice the poke anyway.

**-o0o-**

Resurrection is tricky business.

A proper spell is a long brew; the amount of energy needed to put the right soul back in the right body needs time to build, more time the longer a person was dead. Since Kai had mulled it over so thoroughly and is doing this without the help of his coven, reanimating a powerful - if poorly guided - Bennett witch was going to cost him moons.

Many, many cycles of moons.

Magic is dirty. Gritty. More than chanting Latin and alighting pillar candles.

Sometimes, it's outright fucking gross. Body fluids, body parts, eye of newt, tail of dog type shit. Sometimes, it's very precise. Perfectly symmetrical casting circles, exact timing, knowing your east from your west to the smallest degree precision.

Sometimes it's both.

**-o0o-**

On the first black moon, he has to bind her bones with yew thread, between the witching hour and the devil's hour. He can't start early and he mustn't finish late.

He almost pukes twice pulling the back the remains of her skin to get to her bones. It's sticky and squelching, not exactly wet, but not completely dried out. And it smells like pork chops left out overnight.

**-o0o-**

Kai avoids the honeyed ham on Thanksgiving.

**-o0o-**

On the second black moon, he has to carve summoning and binding sigils to the energy vertices of her body. She's dried up by this point, having been kept in the cool, dry air of the sanctum's basement. Kai uses power tools instead of the typical athame, and the sigils come out mathematically perfect.

He beams at her corpse.

"We'll have you back in no time, Bonster."

**-o0o-**

On the third black moon, he has to move her to consecrated grounds and he drives almost two hours away from the sanctum to the original Gemini house. Bathsheba rides shotgun, tail flicking back and forth from her curled up form on the floor. It's in Olympia, and is old, decrepit, and creepy as fuck, but there's no denying the sacredness of it. It's a witch's house, where the tiny, surviving Gemini originally lived after fleeing Salem.

They'd fled together with Bennetts, before the two covens had split. He informs Bonnie of this when he pulls her from the trunk.

"I bet you're pissed I'm doing this to you again," he had teased Bonnie as he tucked her duvet-wrapped form in the trunk of his Jeep. He tossed a shovel and a bait box beside her. "But you can't exactly ride shotgun, Bonnie Boo."

It takes him forty minutes to dig a hole in the exact location in the witches' house, exactly seven feet deep; the ground is cold and hard and he's delayed by his ancestors. He can feel the pressure of the spirits disagreeing with him and Kai sighs, annoyed by their interference. Bonnie needs to planted at exactly 12:13 a.m. or he'd have to wait another month.

"I _know_ she's not Gemini," he finally snaps. He feels almost like he did that night he earned his imprisonment, more than a little unhinged. Magic swells under his skin like a tidal wave. "She's a Bennett, and she's rare. I'm bringing her back."

They shut up.

He lowers her gently into her new grave and pours the contents of the bait box over her. The smell of fetal flesh is putrid; Kai smiles down at Bonnie.

"You need your nutrients, babe. Eat up."

He covers the grave.

She has to incubate. She was dead for a long time. Nine more moons.

**-o0o-**

Later, he wonders why he didn't just use magic to prepare the grave. With some chagrin, he realizes that he still feels like the old, magicless Kai, despite rapidly approaching the end of his first year as the coven leader.

How jarring.

**-o0o-**

On the fourth black moon, a storm wails outside as Kai plans a Lupercalia feast for the entire coven. Olivia sidles up to his side.

"What did you bury at the witches' house?"

Kai feels his blood run cold.

"Tell me," she implores. "Or I'll dig it up."

A sneer touches his lips. He should have killed the brat when he had the chance. A thought plants itself in his head. A way to accelerate the incubation, a way he'd been planning to avoid because he didn't think Bonnie would approve. But oh, how he so looked forward to her return, his very own Annabelle Lee.

"I'll do you one better, lil' sis," he peeks under his eyelashes at her scowling cherubic face. "I'll show you."

**-o0o-**

He stares down at the blood-soaked ground.

"Fuck," he utters, watching the rapid decay of Livvy Poo's flesh. Her mass of blonde curls thins, her skin greys, and her body shrinks into itself. For a moment she looks almost like a desiccated vampire before she more resembles the Crypt Keeper.

Ew.

Kai wonders how he'll hide this one.

**-o0o-**

Watching the life force drain from Olivia, he realizes with a jolt that this dark moon fell on the eve of Bonnie's birthday. His watch beeps at the stroke of midnight and he watches his youngest sister's body crumble to dust, the blood that had poured from her slit neck absorb completely into the ground as if it was never there.

A shuddering breath leaves him.

The storm that followed him from Portland rattles the witches' house.

"Happy birthday, Bonster."

The ground at his feet pulses.

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_act ii_

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The ringing is loud and obnoxious, pulling Kai from his slumber. He groans softly and looks over at his side, to a swath of dark curls and cotton draped shoulders. They don't move, except to gently rise and fall with sleep-heavy breaths.

Good. The ringing hasn't woken her yet.

He nabs his cell off the nightstand, silencing it and taking it out of the room where he can answer without disturbing his sleeping roommate.

"Yeah?" he grunts as a greeting. His voice is raspy and sleep-laden. There's a pause on the other end.

"Did you just wake up?" Jo's voice greets him. He can hear chaos in the background, her crying daughters and her overwhelmed baby daddy. "It's like one in the afternoon over there."

Kai leans against the walls, staring passed the living room to his front door, where his mud-laden boots reside. He needs to clean them stat, but he's just so exhausted.

"I had a late night."

"Doing what?"

"I don't know, sissy, what do twenty-four year old single men do on Friday nights?"

Jo scoffs. "I don't believe you."

"I don't care," Kai drolls. "What do you want?"

His aged twin is quiet for a moment.

"Any updates about Liv's disappearance?"

Kai exhales heavily.

"No," he lies. "I think she was doing something. Heavy magic that backfired. We haven't been able to track anything."

He can practically hear her chewing her lip to pieces.

"People are disappearing in your area."

That surprises Kai.

"You've been keeping track?"

"Seven disappearances in four months, Kai, including Liv. I don't think it was magical backlash. I think whatever got Liv might be hanging around."

His eyes dart towards his closed bedroom door. Jo's more right than she knows.

"I'll throw that idea into the pot at the next council convening," he says. A smirk twists his lips. "Which you've got a standing, open invitation to by the way."

That does the trick. Jo scoffs again. Kai pictures her blue eyes rolling in annoyance

"No way in hell, dick."

She hangs up without saying goodbye and Kai puts his phone back in standby.

"Miss you too, sissy," he grumbles and makes his way back into his bedroom.

The covers are tossed back. She's sitting at the edge of the bed, shoulders hunched over and tense. Green eyes whip in his direction when he pushes the door open.

"Kai," she moans. She looks agonized and it makes something in him squeeze in sympathy. His poor Bonster. "I'm so hungry."

He moves to wrap a comforting arm around her. She leans against him and it makes something trill in Kai.

"Wanna eat what I got you last night?"

**-o0o-**

_four months ago:_

This is imagery the mundanes have gotten right. The desire to bury the dead is a carryover mundanes have from their more mystic origins, primal knowledge presenting itself through ritual. Earth is restorative. Nurturing. Clay and ash and soil springing forward new life, and so it is imagery mundanes have gotten right.

It makes him think of _Thriller._ Or that scene from _Kill Bill_, when Uma Thurman drags herself out of the dirt after being buried alive. That's Bonnie. He watches as the soil shifts, bubbles and boils, and in the end, there is Bonnie, kneeling and naked. His Bride.

Since he hadn't been expecting to take her home until late September, he is woefully underprepared for her return now. All he had at hand was the duvet he'd brought her here in and put back in the trunk. He wraps that around her shoulders when he places her in the front passenger seat of his Jeep.

He grimaces. Ugh. He hadn't washed it since last time.

Not that it matters. Bonnie is grimier than the blanket ever was, covered in consecrated soil and another witch's brave sacrifice. Rain mats short dark locks to her toffee skin in curling little ribbons.

It was a shock to see her face whole and hale again and be hit once more by just how striking she was.

She must be cold - her skin is prickled with goosebumps and his peek at her breasts revealed pebbled nipples - but she gives no indication of being chilled. Bonnie's eerily complacent, following his lead silently. Kai marvels at it.

She's beautiful, perfect, exactly as she was more than a year ago.

"Do you remember anything?" he wonders aloud, driving out of the Olympic peninsula back to Portland.

Bonnie says nothing, clutching the blanket tighter. She slumps against the window and watches the streetlights as they zoom past. The chiaroscuro that plays across her delicate features each time makes Kai's mouth feel dry. He has to swallow.

"No, you're right. Gather your bearings. You're probably tired."

Another thought occurs to him. "You hungry, Bonster?"

The girl in next to him shifts. He can feel her eyes on him after the question. Internally, Kai gloats in triumph at eliciting a real reaction and proving that the girl next to him wasn't just some shell. She understood what he was saying to her.

"Yeah, me too," he agrees. "Let's get burgers."

**-o0o-**

Thirty empty hamburger wrappers later, and Bonnie had contributed the most to them. And she was still going. Kai watches with great interest as she sucks the grease from her fingers and reaches inside the bag for another. She's been going mostly for the meat the past few times, chucking aside the buns for the special sauce soaked patties. It was very Keto of her.

"You know, when I ordered forty Big Macs, it was mostly just to fuck with the staff."

She's still naked, the duvet gathered around her lap as she shovels the food in her mouth. It doesn't seem to bother her that her bare tits are out for her nemesis to admire, so admire he does. Once more he's impressed. Even covered in mud and blood, her breast were full and supple. Stupendous really. She came back perfectly. Magic was awesome.

Bonnie reaches into the last bag once more, pulling out the last few burgers. She pauses and looks at him.

"Have at it," he waves his hand. "I'm sure coming back to life burns a lot of calories."

She finishes the food. Kai assumes it's normal.

It's not like he's ever done necromancy before, okay?

**-o0o-**

_present:_

She's almost vibrating out of her skin when he returns from the sanctum - he needed to get the Ascendant to her prison world that he left in his office last night. It's an exact replica of his own and after making it, he had presented the original to the coven as proof of his fidelity. They had accepted it.

What they don't know is that he had transferred its magic to the replica, so he can take Bonnie to the world he'd made for her. The 1994 Ascendant was nothing more than a bent up astrolabe now.

Bonnie's waiting before the armoire he uses as a gateway to his office. She'd taken time to get dressed, donning black ripped jeans, dark booties and a lacy, flowy jade-colored top that matches her eyes. Her mass of dark curls is pulled into a ponytail and a mixed metal necklace draws his own eyes to her chest. He smiles a genuine smile at her, almost breathless.

What a lucky man he is. His girlfriend is gorgeous.

"You're home," she greets, rising from the oversized armchair. Her mouth meets his chastely. "I missed you."

"I was gone five minutes," he teases, raising his eyebrow.

"It was a long time."

"Because you're hungry."

"Because you weren't with me," she corrects, hooking her finger through his belt loop and kissing him once more. This time, Kai kisses her back and the connection swiftly becomes heated.

It's Bonnie who breaks the kiss, pulling away to press her lips his left shoulder. The scar there tingles.

She does that often, usually in silent apology, when her hunger begins to overwhelm her. She once explained that the action grounds her, reminds her that she is a monster and dangerous if she lost control. Kai had snapped back that she wasn't a monster and it was the biggest argument they'd had since her return.

They'd come to a true sort of peace after and that was when their relationship really bloomed. He knows she disagrees, but Kai still stands by what he'd said then.

Bonnie's not a monster. She could never be, no matter what or who she ate.

**-o0o-**

The prison world he made for Bonnie wasn't really a prison world. It was a replica of their house. A prison house. Trying to go outside didn't really yield any results - opening the front door just leads back to the foyer. When Bonnie was first adjusting, he'd watched in amused concern as she drove herself mad trying to find an exit.

Luckily they were passed that point. He hadn't actually made this place to hold Bonnie.

Making people disappear into thin air took some magic.

When they apparate, the house is quiet.

"Ooooh," Kai chuckles. "She's hiding. Five bucks that she'll pop out swinging."

"Twenty that I'll find her first," Bonnie counters softly.

Her head is already turned away from him, looking past the foyer into the kitchen. She drops his hand, the bloody gash on her own already sealed. Kai tucks the Ascendant into his inside jacket pocket and follows her to the kitchen. Bonnie jumps onto the island, silent, staring down at something on the other side.

"I win," she says. She's answered by a shrill scream.

**-o0o-**

Kai frowns down at Bonnie as she sucks the gristle of the girl's femur. He kicks the other half-eaten leg.

"I can't believe she stabbed you. Psycho bitch."

Bonnie drops the bone and begins to rip open the torso. She's going for the organs now, so Kai knows that she's almost finished, that her hunger will be quelled for another week or two before she must eat again.

"You've stabbed me before," she points out. Kai turns his scowl from the body to her.

"Like, forever ago," Kai argues. "That was different."

Bonnie nods. "It was," she agrees. "You weren't fighting for your life against a scary monster hell-bent on eating you. You stabbed me for my blood and because you wanted to hurt me."

"You're not a monster," Kai snaps, not bothering to deny the rest of her statement. That part was the only bit of truth. "You're just...a predator. With a very specific prey animal. That doesn't make you a monster."

Bonnie simply stares at him as she chews through cardiac muscle. Her green eyes stand out brightly against her blood-covered jowls.

"Okay." It wasn't an agreement, just a placation. Kai continues to glower as she finishes her meal.

He hates when she gets like this.

**-o0o-**

_three months ago:_

There's something wrong with her.

It's not something he'd wanted to consider, but after a month of strange behavior and continuous silence, he's beginning to wonder if what he'd brought back was Bonnie after all. The woman hasn't eaten at all since the first night, and as far as he can tell she never sleeps. She just quietly stalks around his house, watching him and Bathsheba or others through the window.

He knew her - not the little things, but he understood the essence of her better than she did. He'd spent more time getting into her mind than he's ever done with anyone else. He knew her strengths, her weaknesses, the good, bad, and ugliness of her.

And he'd thought maybe he'd just need time, another moon for her to recombobulate and feel herself once more. But it had been a month. And the strange behavior was getting worse.

Perhaps he had no right to, but he _missed_ Bonnie. Staring at her visage every day and wondering if it was really her underneath was driving him crazy.

**-o0o-**

It's almost two in the morning when he gets home and Bonnie's still up. Of course, she was - she never sleeps. He's woken up more than once to see her standing at the foot of his bed, watching him slumber. Kai's secure enough in his masculinity to admit he'd screamed like a child the first time it happened.

The TV was on, playing an episode of _The Walking Dead_ and Kai snorts at the idea of Bonnie watching this. The irony doesn't escape him. Shedding his jacket and his overshirt, leaving him in his black tank top, he goes to seek her out.

He finds her in the kitchen. The freezer is open, piles of frozen meat packages discarded on the floor. Kai squints at the ruin and at the young woman kneeling in the middle of it. She's crunching on something and Kai can't help but laugh.

"Did you eat _all_ the meat? While it was frozen?"

It's like the sound of his voice was a trigger. Bonnie pauses and turns to him, her mouth sticky and red and wet.

Kai frowns. Her mouth was too wet to be from frozen meat.

"Whatchya munching on, Bonster?"

She stands and turns around to face him. In her arms are the gored remains of calico fur and small bones.

"Bathsheba?" Kai murmurs stepping closer. Bonnie holds the dead cat out to him. "You ate my familiar?"

Kai takes the remains and sighs before dropping them to the floor. He steps over the cat to embrace Bonnie, who has tears welling in her eyes.

"At least you're eating now," he murmurs. "I was getting worried there."

Bonnie shakes her head, pressing her face against his left shoulder. She shudders, laden with sadness and he chastises himself for ever doubting in Bonnie. In magic. The two are so indelibly entwined; of course, she would be herself. She only needed time to adjust.

"Shh," he soothes. "It's just a familiar. A stray cat I picked up. She can be replaced."

_You can't be though,_ he thinks and holds her tighter. Bonnie hugs him back, pressing her face to him.

She's warm. Breathing. Alive. His Bonster. She was going through a rough time.

**-o0o-**

The bite takes him by surprise. Perhaps it shouldn't have. Bonnie clearly had little control over her gluttony. But her teeth are hard and ripping and when he _vatos_ her away, they take that bit of him with them. Bonnie crashes into the wall and Kai stumbles back, slipping on his blood as it quickly paints the floor.

"Jesus Christ," he breathes, slapping his hand over the gushing wound. Bonnie looks up at him from where she'd fallen, anger and hunger and madness twisting her beautiful face. Kai flings his blood at her when she rushes at him and begins chanting.

"_Phasmatos sanguinem ligabis mae ir!_"

The blood glows and Bonnie stops moving as it locks her in place, temporarily binding her to him.

"Fuck," Kai grunts, covering his bleeding shoulder again. He feels woozy and light-headed. He wants to pass out, but he needs to neutralize Bonnie before he can. He pulls a wok from the hanging pan rack.

"When I said I didn't mind you biting me, that's not the context I meant, Bon."

He smacks her across the head with the pan and she falls. He peers down at her for a moment. She's not unconscious like he'd hoped, staring at the tiles, and he wonders if her not sleeping thing also includes not being knocked out. That's unfortunate. Kai hates the idea of hurting her so much after all the effort he put into making her live again. He raises the wok again, readying for a second blow. Hopefully, this one sticks.

"Please don't," she sobs. Kai pauses, lowering his arm. The wok slips from his fingers. Bonnie looks up at him, bloody and tear-stained, and still so, so beautiful.

"What's wrong with me? What did you do?"

**-o0o-**

_present:_

When Bonnie finishes her meal, Kai moves to kiss her on her horror-film lips, licking against the roof of her mouth. The prison world does its job and removes the girl's remains, and Kai moves closer to his girl.

Bon doesn't like it when he does that, shoving him away swiftly.

"Let me clean up first," she gripes. Kai frames her face with his hands and pulls her closer, brushing her nose with his.

"Why?"

"I'm bloody and gross, Malachai."

He smiles in violent delight.

"I don't care," he mutters, kissing the corner of her mouth. He tugs the end of her ponytail and licks a clean trail through the blood on her cheek.

Bonnie shoves him again.

"What's wrong with you? What if she's HIV-positive?"

Kai laughs and sweeps her feet from under her, throwing himself down beside her. His hands glide up her legs, feeling her skin through the rips in her jeans. He pops the button open and Bonnie's brows stay furrowed, her arms crossed and her hips unmoving to help him as he tugs her jeans off.

"I'm a wizard, Bonnie," he says in his best Hagrid impression.

She snorts as he pries her legs apart and shoves his face in her crotch. He inhales deeply, huffing the perfume of Bonnie's lust. The woman laughs, uncrossing her arms to push his head away. He catches her hands and holds them in his hair, laving a stripe against the seat of her panties. Her fingers curl, clutching at strands of his hair as he moves his hands back to her hips. Moving her panties aside, Kai in goes for a meal of his own.

**-o0o-**

_three months ago:_

"You have to eat, Bonnie Boo," Kai explains, watching her open the front door again and walk out in an eerie calm. He's got a theory and he needs her to eat in order to prove it true. "It's the only way for you to retain yourself," he continues when she reappears in the foyer.

Bonnie looks at him, anger and hatred painting her face. Her speech has left her again, the bite of Kai's shoulder she had not enough to keep her from losing herself. Kai rubs a hand over the bandage.

He doesn't think he'd mind being consumed by Bonnie, but it's not ideal for her to snack on him.

She probably wasn't only angry about his persistence though. He'd used his Ascendant to slap together an alternate version of his house in the few minutes while she'd still been stupefied by his spell. Then he'd left her here to gather some information and wrangle up her dinner; he wouldn't be surprised if she'd thought he'd abandoned her again.

She'll learn. Kai won't ever leave her now.

"Look, just nibble on a finger, yeah? See if that helps."

The man under him squirms and Kai hits his head. Bonnie turns away and Kai sighs.

"It's just a special diet, Bon. Think about it this way - you're sick. You need to change your diet to accommodate for being sick. Like a diabetic."

Bonnie simply shakes her head, hugging herself and pacing.

"Fine," Kai mutters. "If you won't bite, I will."

Her head jerks up at his proclamation, right as Kai uses his magic disarm the man he's sitting on. He screams through his gag, but Kai pays him no mind, focused on the woman who'd stopped her pacing at the sight of the bloody limb suspended in air. Blood squirts from the arm and from the man it had come from.

"C'moooon, Bonster. Just a little taste, babe. You'll feel better."

The arm waves back and forth in the air, a temptation. Bonnie stares it as if enraptured and Kai knows - she just needs to eat and she'll feel like her old self again.

**-o0o-**

It takes days and another man before she finally caves. He can't imagine how hungry she must be, going over a month without giving her body what it craved. Being a big eater himself, Kai bet she's feeling ravenous.

He rubs a hand over himself through his jeans, watching her tear into the second guy. He was tall, bigger than Kai and subduing him had required a little bit of magic, even though Kai had wanted to leave as little of a magical trace as possible. Bonnie's hunger made her stronger than Kai, as she manages to take the man down rather easily.

It makes Kai wonder - those nights she stood over his bed, watching him sleep, had she been fighting with herself? Did she wrestle with wanting to eat and wanting to be a good person?

Bonnie had every right to take his life. It was owed to her after all.

But she _hadn't_. And sleeplessness and cannibalism aside, isn't that the Bonnie at her core? The one who would sacrifice her own needs for the needs of others, even her own enemy?

Kai rubs himself harder. The friction isn't enough. He undoes the front of his jeans and slips his hand beneath the waistband of his boxer-briefs.

Bonnie goes for the liver. Kai tugs himself to release.

**-o0o-**

_present:_

A gasp leaves her, low and needy, a sultry tone Kai will never tire of hearing. He drives himself deeper into her honeyed passage, gripping the base of her ponytail and arching her head back towards him. Bonnie grips the kitchen island supporting her, leveraging it so she can push her ass back against him.

Kai welcomes the shiver it sends down his spine, exhaling a pleasured grunt of his own.

He presses his tongue to the back of her shoulders, down her spine a bit until he can't go any farther without unsheathing himself from her heat. He slips one arm around her waist to palm a breast, his other hand leaving her hair to help her pull her hips against him.

Bonnie keens. The place of their connection grows wetter, her pussy drenching him with her want. Kai can't get enough.

She's so alive under him. Writhing, and lusting, and satisfying her body's needs. This is theirs. He gave her this and she took it and held onto it and maybe one day she'll stop apologizing for what she has to do to keep it.

Bonnie's alive. She's alive and she's his.

**-o0o-**

Kai fucks her harder and she begs for more.

Because she can want everything and anything from him and he'll give it to her.

**-o0o-**

_two months ago:_

Now that he knows Bonnie is prone to crippling, suicidal depression, he keeps a wary eye on her once she's back to herself and out of the post-death fog she'd been stuck in before she ate.

Not that she can die. But he doesn't want her hurting herself.

He'd gone back through the grimoire and read the fine print on the spell he used to resurrect her. He'd translated the Babylonian twice, then triple-checked his translations were correct.

Then he went on a history dive to figure out how many times the spell has been done and he'd discerned exactly what happened with Bonnie.

It was sacrificing Liv that made her this way.

Had he done the spell the way he originally intended, and let Bonnie gestate in consecrated soil, her life would be bound to his, the caster. She'd live and die by his life force which would be shorter for being shared between two people, but she'd be humanly normal.

Part of that was still the case. They were still bound and she'd die if he did, just like any other member of his coven would. Adding blood to the mix and trading Livvy Poo's life force for a new life for Bonnie meant that Bonnie had to...keep up the spell or risk becoming something called a _strigoi_, which was like a vampire, but actually scary.

Luckily, Kai had killed another witch to bring Bonnie back. Offing a mundane wouldn't have had the right kind of energy and Bonnie would have returned as a monster from the start. Looking into _strigoi_, Kai figured that's where previous casters of the spell had gone wrong. They either sacrificed a mundane for a witch or let the spell go too long without being replenished.

Magic was a _precise_ science.

When he had explained this all to Bonnie, she locked herself in the guest bathroom for hours and shut him out, falling silent. He'd finally had to scry through a mirror to check on her and that's how he found her submerged in the bathtub. The water was red.

"Shit!"

Kai scrambles up and runs towards the bathroom the door opening itself to let him in. He skids to his knees and reaches into the iron-filled water to pull Bonnie out.

She's still in her clothes - his clothes - and they're waterlogged and heavy. She's as tepid as the water she was sitting in and her eyes are closed.

Shit. _Shit._

She can't die, right? She can't! But she looks…

Kai grips her to him and mutters to himself. Latin charms, pleas to Bonnie, angry curses.

She coughs once. Then again. She spits water onto him, but Kai's already soaked and hardly notices.

"Why? Why?" He wants to throttle her. He's furious. And shaken. He feels like he did when he was being locked away. Scared. Panicked.

But over Bonnie, not himself.

"Why do you want to die so goddamn badly? Why can't you accept that you _deserve _to live?"

He's glaring down at her and Bonnie looks miserable, skin glistening and dark eyelashes clumped together.

"I don't want to hurt anyone."

"Fine. Don't. I will."

"No, Kai -"

"You can't die unless I do. And if you kill me, you kill my entire coven - hundreds of people, including children, who are completely innocent of the things I've done.

"Please, Bon. Please. I can feed you. You don't have to hurt anyone. Just eat what I bring to you."

He clings to her. The embrace is probably too tight, but Bonnie feels too cold. Kai wants to pump her full of his own heat, to share it and feel the life radiate from her.

So he clings. And after a moment, Bonnie clings back.

"You're not right," she informs him. Kai laughs, burying his face in her neck.

**-o0o-**

It's the first time he fucks her.

Or rather, she fucks him.

He had lead her back to his bedroom to get her out of the soaked t-shirt and shorts and into something dry.

While he looks for something appropriate to lend her, he tosses a blanket at Bonnie from the linens side of his closet.

"Here. Keep warm."

Like an idiot, he's still digging through his clothes when she touches his shoulder. It never occurs to him to wonder why he can bring himself to turn his back to the cannibal in his house, trusting her not harm him when she sneaks up. But he does.

Bonnie touches him, and like a trained pet, Kai is up and turning his attention to her, ready to meet her needs.

She's naked. He doesn't expect that. Aside from the first night, when she was the most discombobulated, she seemed aware of her nudity and the effects it had on Kai. He's rendered still, eyes darting up and down her frame, before resting on her catlike eyes.

"Bon?" he wonders. She steps forward to kiss him and something in Kai snaps.

His eagerness probably overwhelms her. She gasps against his mouth and Kai surges forward to get a taste. His hands skim down her sides, behind her thighs and he hikes her up so that she can wrap her legs around him, her arms mimicking the action around his neck. They move against the closet wall, his hanging shirts yielding to their forms.

Bonnie's hands skim lower to shove down his sweats. Kai can smell the scent of her, grinds himself against her wetness.

"I'm gonna taste you there later," he mutters in her ear. "I'm gonna make you cry, Bon."

Her breath stutters and she pushes against him, grinding on his hardness and murmuring soft pleas. It's a hassle to try and enter her like this, so Kai reverses their positions, sliding down so he's sitting with his back to the wall.

Bonnie rises up, lets Kai aim himself, and then she slides down on him. They both sigh in relief.

"Make a mess on it," he tells her. She shivers and looks up at him. Her green eyes, normally so bright, look almost black from her desire. He imagines his own look much the same. "Take what you want, Bonster."

She does.

**-o0o-**

_present:_

The more cognizant she is, the more she quietly asks for things. Clothes, toiletries, and trinkets Kai could never use have accumulated slowly in his house, until it becomes undeniable that it's a shared space. He's happy to acquire them for her, eager to encourage any behavior that suggests a permanence, a willingness to truly live.

They spend two whole days shopping, getting more things for Bonnie so she no longer has to share with Kai. Not that he minds sharing, but Kai is pretty minimalistic in regards to meeting his own needs. Bonnie, the more she settles, requires a bit more.

He's pretty quiet the second trip, helping with her bags and footing the bill. When they get home, she sets up her new laptop and pretty soon she's searching up local colleges and job postings. Kai has to bite back his grin as he prepares dinner for himself.

Something must give him away though, because Bonnie turns to him, exasperated.

"Just say it," she sighs. Kai's grin blooms full.

"You want to stay with me," he gloats. Bonnie's expression softens in the face of his glee, his victory. She nods.

"I do."

The confession elates him.

_._

_._

_._

_final act_

_._

_._

_._

_four months ago:_

The first thing the woman notices is how heavy she feels. It's like the weight of the world is pressing down on her and she struggles to push it away. Everything is oppressive. Dark. Moving her hand feels like a Herculean task, but eventually, she pushes past the darkness and into the storm.

She gets soaked, hauling herself from her knees to her unsteady feet. Thunder cracks as lightning surges, the charged electrons making the tiny hairs on her body stand on end, prickling her with goosebumps. It's cold, the woman thinks. She's not sure.

She only knows there is a discomfort within her body she can't yet place.

All around her, everything is at once new and old. Familiar, yet unrecognizable. Purveying the wood, the nature, her gaze lands on the person standing before her, staring at her with an expression as if he'd been waiting to greet her for a long time.

He. A man. He's a man. She knows this, even if she can't find the word for it, knows the differences between his body and hers, even if she can't find the shame for it. The more the woman stares at him, the more uncertain she feels. Unsure of what to think or feel about his presence here.

The man holds his hand out.

"Welcome back, Bonster. Let's get you home."

_._

_._

_._

"_Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity and ruin."_


End file.
